Install Skype in Kali Linux

Skype is a freemium voice-over-IP service and instant messaging client, currently developed by the Microsoft Skype Division. The name was derived from “sky” and “peer”. Skype was first released in August 2003. It was created by by Janus Friis (Denmark) and Niklas Zennström (Sweden) in cooperation with Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn (Estonia), who supplied the backend which was also used in Kazaa. Skype had 663 million registered users as of the end of 2010. It was bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion. Microsoft’s Skype division headquarters is in Luxembourg, but most of the development team and 44% of the overall employees of the division are still situated in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.

The service allows users to communicate with peers by voice using a microphone, video by using a webcam, and instant messaging over the Internet. Phone calls may be placed to recipients on the traditional telephone networks. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free of charge, while calls to landline telephones and mobile phones are charged via a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features, including file transfer, and videoconferencing. Competitors include SIP and H.323-based services, such as Linphone and Google Hangouts.

Unlike most other VoIP services, Skype is a hybrid peer-to-peer and client–server system. It makes use of background processing on computers running Skype software, and this is reflected in Skype’s original proposed name of Sky Peer-to-Peer.

Some network administrators have banned Skype on corporate, government, home and education networks, citing reasons such as inappropriate usage of resources, excessive bandwidth usage, and security concerns.[Source:Wikipedia]

Microsoft released Skype for Linux users (interesting that Microsoft, the rival for Linux released Linux package which just shows how powerful and demanding Linux communities has became).

But that’s nothing compared to what you have to go through to install it. Every one of them says to use apt-get -f install or in short, to force your installation cause none of them managed to do a clean install and forcing dependencies was the only way to complete their installation. Now, we all know by doing that you will end up with broken dependencies. Also you should know how to roll back your changes (remove Skype and dependency packages). In this post I will show you the followings:

Install Skype from Microsoft’s official skype-install.deb package using MultiArch (i386).

Remove Skype

Clean your broken dependencies

A complete rollback of MultiArch and clean aptitude for remaining files.

Sound’s good and fair? Because this post is going to be long, you’ll have to be patient and read to the last line. I also suggest to do it in Virtual Environment in case you’re afraid to do it in your main installation. Personally, I installed it in my main Kali Linux installation and nothing broke, I managed to do a complete installation and rollback meeting every dependency for Skype. So let’s move on to the instructions for how to Install Skype in Kali Linux and rollback changes with meeting dependency requirements for both 32-bit and 64-bit installation.

Install Skype in Kali Linux

To install Skype in a 64-bit Kali Linux installation, you will need to enable MultiArch. For 32-bit (i386) it’s much easier. Please note that I’ve tested this in a 64-Bit Kali Linux installation, so those who are using 32-Bit Kali Linux installation, instructions might be slight different, in fact easier.

MultiArch is the term being used to refer to the capability of a system to install and run applications of multiple different binary targets on the same system. For example running a i386-linux-gnu application on an amd64-linux-gnu system.

Those who are using 64-bit Kali Linux installation, start from Step 1. Those who are using 32-Bit (i386) Kali Linux installation can start fromStep 2.

Step 1: Enable MultiArch in 64-bit Kali Linux

Enabling MultiArch is rather easy in Kali Linux. One thing to remember, you need to have the Official Kali Linux Repository added. In case you messed up your/etc/apt/sources.list file, following instructions on adding official Kali Linux repositories.

Now assuming you’re using 64-Bit Kali Linux Installation, type in the following in your terminal:

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root@kali:~# dpkg --add-architecture i386

How do you know you managed to add i386 Architecture? See below

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root@kali:~# cat /var/lib/dpkg/arch

amd64

i386

In case you’re wondering how to remove this i386 Architecture, you can do it as below:

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root@kali:~# dpkg --remove-architecture i386

So far so good. I’ve also added a screenshot to show every step before and after change.

Now to update aptitude to get package list from Kali Repository. Do an apt-get update

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root@kali:~# apt-get update

Step 2: Download and install Skype in Kali Linux

To download Skype, you can head to Microsoft website and download it using using browser. The official package is available in theMicrosoft Official Skype webpage

But you can also just download using wget which is a lot faster. Personally, I like to create folder for each downloaded package so that I know where they are. Type in the following command to download Skype in a folder named Skype

Now that we have downloaded Skype package, we can try to install it using dpkgcommand. (This is shown in every website and forums out there). I am showing it cause I want to show the after math of those instructions. Please read on …

To install Skype package using dpkg, issue the following command:

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg -i skype-install.deb

This is where it gets interesting.

NOTE: 32-bit Kali Linux users shouldn’t have any problems or errors. For 32-bit Kali Linux users, Skype will install just fine. You can move toStep 5 on see instructions on How to Remove Skype from Kali Linux i386.

During the installation, you might get an error message about dependencies like the following: (also shown in the screenshot above)

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg -i skype-install.deb

(Reading database...303315files anddirectories currently installed.)

Preparing to replace skype4.2.0.11-1(using skype-install.deb)...

Unpacking replacement skype...

dpkg:dependency problems prevent configuration of skype:

skype depends on libqt4-dbus(&gt;=4:4.5.3).

skype depends on libqt4-network(&gt;=4:4.8.0).

skype depends on libqt4-xml(&gt;=4:4.5.3).

skype depends on libqtcore4(&gt;=4:4.7.0~beta1).

skype depends on libqtgui4(&gt;=4:4.8.0).

skype depends on libqtwebkit4(&gt;=2.1.0~2011week13).

dpkg:error processing skype(–install):

dependency problems–leaving unconfigured

Processing triggers fordesktop-file-utils…

Processing triggers forgnome-menus…

Processing triggers forhicolor-icon-theme…

Errors were encountered whileprocessing:

skype

And the solution for dpkg: error processing skype (–install) error is to force your installation

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get -f install

Then reinstall using dpkg

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg -i skype-install.deb

ARE YOU MAD? WHY WOULD SOMEONE FORCE INSTALLATION UNLESS IT’S ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY? YOU ARE BREAKING STUFF AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO ROLLBACK.

I get pissed when I see these posts that people say force it and you’ll be fine. Why would you post something like that? After this installation, you will end up in dependency problems right left and center.

I guess that enough ranting. Let’s move on.

Step 3: Install gdebi to meet install requirements

dpkg is a powerful tool, but it doesn’t install dependencies automatically. What we need is some package installer that can go out and fetch all required dependencies while installing a .deb package. The best one out there is gdebi.

To install gdebi issue the following command in terminal:

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get install gdebi

BANG!!!! See what I mean… Now I am getting those dependency problems and only way to overcome that is to force install. I am not going to do that. I will try to resolve that first so that I can install packages normally.

Step 3.1: Fixing Dependency problems in Kali Linux

Let’s try to remove that i386 MultiArch. Naturally, I tried the following first

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg --remove-architecture i386

Nope, not good enough cause I got something that’s using i386 MultiArch.

Step 3.2: Autoclean, Autoremove, Purge Package Manager

So I tried autoclean, autoremove and purge.

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get autoclean

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get autoremove

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get purge

Still no good. Now you can see why I got MAD when I saw those posts telling you to force it. There’s few post in Kali Forums where users messed up their system in a similar manner and ended up reinstalling Kali Linux because they couldn’t resolve dependencies and was unable to update or upgrade. But the problem will remain if you don’t know how you broke your installation on the first place.

Step 3.3: Temporarily remove Skype

Now back to issue. I soon realized that my Skype installation was half arsed and that was the one causing all these trouble. So let’s remove Skype temporarily.

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get remove skype

That went well!!!

Step 3.4: Finally remove MultiArch, update aptitude and install gdebi

Now remove i386 MultiArch, do an apt-get update and install gdebi. We do thatapt-get update to refresh package manager list (otherwise, Package Manager will contain the package list for i386 as well).

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg --remove-architecture i386

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get update

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get install gdebi

Nice. Worked like a charm. Now we can install Skype with all it’s dependencies usinggdebi.

At this point you should be back to square 1, you have Kali Linux 64-Bit running without MultiArch enabled and Package Manager is working fine. No dependencies were broken. So we can re-add i386 MultiArch, update package manager and install Skype using GDebi. Follow the commands below:

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg --add-architecture i386

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get update

Step 4.1: Install Skype using gdebi

gdebi is very straight forward, you can just issue the following command to install Skype from the downloaded skype-install.debpackage.

Your dependency might be slightly different, but every one of them should have :i386at the end of each package name. Don’t ask me why, but just do it, we will show the reasoning at the end of this post.

That should take a while to download all dependencies and install Skype.

Locate Skype ICON from Application > Internet > Skype and run it.

Agree to the Terms and Conditions and choose language (your right’s for privacy and NSA to snoop onto you etc. etc..)

Finally you get your Skype. Login and enjoy.

In case your sound is mute you might want to follow this other article I wrote previously to fix that.There’s also another issue withPulseAudio configured for per-user sessions … (warning) during boot you might be interested in.

But that’s not a critical issue..

However, rolling back is….

Step 5: Removing Skype and it’s dependencies from Kali Linux

How would you remove Skype now that you have all those packages installed and MultiArch enabled? No change is good enough if you can’t rollback. This is why I emphasis on rollback for each change (if possible). To remove Skype from Kali Linux please follow the steps shown below:

Step 5.1: Removing Skype in 32-Bit Kali Linux

Easy…

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get remove skype

You don’t need to worry about dependencies cause you are using 32-Bit Kali Linux Installation. In case you want to, just autoclean,autoremove and purge.

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get autoclean

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get autoremove

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get purge

You’re set. 32-Bit Kali Linux users don’t need to read anymore, but I suggest to read on as you’ll get the idea on what to do in a similar situation.

Step 5.2: Removing Skype in 64-Bit Kali Linux

First remove Skype using usual apt-get command

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get remove skype

This should just work as just removing Skype is like removing any other packages.

Step 5.3: Remove MultiArch in 64-Bit Kali Linux

Now let’s try to remove MultiArch i386 cause we probably don’t need it anymore. Also I like ensure I can do it..

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root@kali:~/Skype# dpkg --remove-architecture i386

Nope, we are having exactly the same issue as before (see Step 3). Even afterautoclean, autoremove and purge you will have the same issue (well autoremovewill clean a few things but not enough to allow you to remove MultiArch)

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root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get autoclean

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get autoremove

root@kali:~/Skype# apt-get purge

Step 5.4: Remove remaining i386 dependencies from 64-Bit Kali Linux

Remember I said to save Skype dependency list in Step 4.2? That was a grand idea. All you need to do now is to paste those lines with apt-get remove. In this way, you’re making sure, you’re only removing i386 packages that were installed as part of Skype installation and nothing else.

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